The social media platform X has sparked widespread outrage after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of women by stripping their garments.
Several instances have been seen where the tool has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being introduced to ban nudification tools. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a jail term and significant fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a post.
It is often used to provide commentary or more context to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded photo through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been condemned for enabling users to create images and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "showing likenesses of individuals in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.
